Global Food Collaborative

If you haven't already read the press relase in our news section, you should.    It is definitely an insight into the future of the supply chain of food.

Earth Institute's Dolphin-Safe has just "partnered" with Maersk.   I was stunned for a couple of reasons.  First of all, the scale of partnership doesn't sound like a partnership in the traditional sense.    I mean, if Global Food Collaborative partnered with Walmart, you'd kind of blink wouldn't you?   Or if Arctic Paws, partnered with Microsoft,  you'd kind of have to wonder, wouldn't you?

I was mostly stunned for what it means to our future.    Up until now there were two stakeholders in this certification business.   First it was the consumers who started with asking for and getting organic labeled product.     Next it was the commercial buyers seeking quality standards beyond the traditional USDA Prime Select stamp.     This, however, is a brand new stakeholder in the certification game and a pretty big one in my book.   Remember, we have hundreds of labels now distinguishing company processes or product ingredient or handling practices.      

For those of you familiar with being around major earthquakes, you can first hear the earth rumble before you feel it shake.   That is exactly the sensation I have right now.   Maersk's announcement is the sound of the earth rumbling in the food supply chain.     A worldwide transportation company has established a new and significant benchmark of social responsibility.  

As I have said in my earlier blogs - I'm a big fan of labels.   I shop this way.   I know, ideally, we should be eating, shopping, hunting, growing, farming locally, but that hasn't happened for me yet.     Dolfin-Safe has always sounded like a good label to me, but can you imagine buyers and sellers working their transportation solutions around products with these various labels?

As for Maersk, good for them.    It is nice to see their eyes wide open and stepping up on their role on sustainability of a species.    It is nice to see it volunteered rather then regulated.   Other then that, I'm listening to the rumbling and waiting for the quake to fully shake.

What airline will be the first?  Will they require Pork Quality Assurance Plus?  (Swine Flu remember)  

How about a packaging company?  Only accept Certified Humane?

How about a national food distribution company?   Organic Only? 

Your regional trucking company?     Follows Maersk in supporting sustainable seafood with a Marine Stewardship Council/Aquaculture Certified only policy?

Wow, socially responsible links in the supply chains.

The rumbling is getting really loud, we should start feeling the shaking soon and I imagine it will be one for the history books.